For the last few years, the world of NoSQL databases has been filled with exciting new projects, ambitious claims, and plenty of chest beating. The hypesters said the new NoSQL software packages offered tremendous performance gains by tossing away all of the structure and paranoid triple-checking that database creators had lovingly added over the years. Reliability? It's overrated, said the new programmers who didn't run serious business applications for Wall Street banks but trafficked in trivial, forgettable data about people's lives. Tabular structure? It's too hidebound and limiting. If we ignore these things, our databases will be free and insanely fast.

Alas, just as the summer of love ended and reality set in, the boundary-free experimentation with NoSQL databases is slowly being brought down to earth. Oracle, the developer of top-notch, bulletproof SQL databases, has arrived at the hippie fest with a solid, practical, and very Oracle-like NoSQL server. While the crazy dreamers can continue to craft NoSQL data stores, serious people will want to take a look at Oracle's version. It offers many of the features that make NoSQL fun but also the solid performance promises that tend to come from big, serious teams of engineers. NoSQL pioneers will want to tell themselves that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.